Changing ambulances

The University Health System is poised to change the ambulance company that provides 911 ambulance service to unincorporated areas of Bexar County.

The University System Board of Managers budget and finance committee approved awarding a three-year contract to Acadian Ambulance Service, a new player in San Antonio but the largest privately held ambulance company in the nation. The 37-year-old company operates in Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana.

The full board will vote on the contract at its next meeting.

At $4.725 million for three years, Acadian wasn’t the lowest bidder, but it came in well under the $5.5 million bid by the current provider, American Medical Response, or AMR. Plus, Acadian promised to upgrade its ambulances with GPS units and new radios.

The lowest bidder was San Antonio-based Americana Ambulance. But a committee made up of hospital officials, the Bexar County Fire Marshal’s Office and the Bexar County First Responder Network decided Americana didn’t have an adequate ambulance fleet and communications infrastructure to handle the contract.

AMR has held the contract since 1998 when it won it away from San Antonio Emergency Medical Services.

Acadian promised to put up to 20 ambulances in the field and station them in quadrants around the county so that it would meet the goal of an average response time of 12 minutes or less at least 70 percent of the time throughout the county.

The taxpayer-supported University System has overseen the contract since Bexar County Commissioners Court gave them authority over it in the early 1990s. And although UHS pays the ambulance company to have units available for emergency runs outside the city, the ambulance company still charges patients for services just as San Antonio EMS does. Board members said they wanted to see that Acadian’s charges were reasonable before approving the contract.

And for those who cheered the announced collaboration between area ambulances and hospitals in creating a Heart Alert Network, Acadia says it has 12-lead EKG units in all its ambulances that can diagnose the worst kinds of heart attacks, and those EKG results can be transmitted to hospitals while the ambulance is en route.